TG members enjoy a talk on amusing stories and local history
Shrewsbury Grange TG met on Monday, 28 October when our speaker was Peter Dunhill whose title was 'Shropshire Calendar', but what he actually talked about was pictures you won't see on a calendar!
To start he told us an amusing story about two grown men fighting over a train calendar in the January sales. He told us about the history of Castlefields - where our group meet, and John Howard and Shrewsbury Prison, he did a lot to improve prisons.
We saw pictures of the Empire, Century & Granada in Shrewsbury, the Clifton in Wellington, and the Majestic in Bridgnorth. Then back to Shrewsbury with the filming of the Christmas Carol - the gravestone of Scrooge in St Chad's churchyard. In Tong churchyard the grave of Little Nell from the Old Curiosity Shop, then Prince Jeremiah of Lesotho, buried in Welshampton.
There's a memorial of Kath Mary Harley in Shrewsbury and Dick Turpin in Aston Munslow at the Swan pub. Humphrey Kynaston at Nesscliffe, he was called Shropshire's Robin Hood and his horse was called Beelzebub, and so the list went on...
We had writers, Ellis Peters, pilot Ernest Maund was one of our first pilots, he had 19 children and invented the dipped headlight. The Shropshire Star's Shirley Tart did articles on Shropshire Privies, then the POW camps, one in St Martins where the prisoner's built a chapel.
Then roads and signs which were either named after someone or were very amusing. Country houses, who knew Shrewsbury School was first a Workhouse? As was Crosshouses before it became a hospital.
Then were many others too which was a very interesting afternoon.
We shall meet again on November, 25 at 1.45pm with a craft afternoon at Castlefields Community Centre. For more information please ring Joyce on 01743 359899.
